Well, since I’ve had some positive feedback on my random linking to a new blog, I figure now I’m going to start making this a daily thing. That’s right, at least one post per day is going to showcase an up-and-coming blogger.
Tonight, I’m featuring Emily of Wahoo and then some…, who blogs about… her life. What’s the difference between her blog and the thirty trillion other blogs where people bitch about their everyday life? Well, because this one is actually funny. It’s not just the same old bullshit from pimply 14-year-olds; rather it’s a funny, intelligent blog that makes you think. So visit her today!
The downtime? Well, that won’t be occuring tonight.
I have already completed the upgrade.
Try and get me now, you fiends!
Tonight at 11:00, I will be performing a minor upgrade of this WordPress installation. This means that from 11:00 until whenever I finish the upgrade, attempts to access my blog may end in 404 errors. I apologize for any inconvience.
More detailed information about this upgrade are available on the WordPress devolopment blog: 1.5.1.2 and 1.5.1.3. Yes, I should be staying more on top of the upgrades, but the 1.5.1.2 security hole was only for those running the default Kubrick template, and the 1.5.1.3 security hole was just announced a few hours ago.
Until then, it may impossible to pingback my blog, as that is the vulnerability and I have disabled that feature as a security precaution temporarily.
The Colorado Department of Revenue, the governing body of the Colorado Moter Vehicle Department, gave me a little piece of paper a little over an hour ago. This one simple sheet of 4.5×11 copy paper states among other things that they have recognized my ability to drive a vehicle without an adult (over 21) present.
However, now that I have this document, I cannot drive until I obtain another little piece of paper: The business-card size proof of auto insurance. That’s right, I have lost my ability to drive because I don’t have a business card with my auto agent’s name and my name on it. Isn’t that dumb?
In other news, I am writing a step-by-step guide to entering the blogging world, establishing your blog, and making it popular. I know a number of other people have done this (Bad Example comes to mind…), but I want to make it clearer, more concise… you know, do stuff to it that makes even the popular [puppy blenders] among us want to read it, while at the same time offering up some tips to the less popular [possible puppy blenders?] among us.
Yes, that was me just giving a link to someone at the bottom of TTLB’s list (#31944). So sue me. The name caught my attention, too… can’t argue with a fat person, as they can just sit on you to win the arguement 
So I think I figured out why I’m suddenly starting to rank so high on the Ecosystem: It’s because of the way I have two things set up. One of them is in place to track where people are clicking on my site (The AXS link tracker). That auto-magically adds “http://blog.mattfast1.com/axs/ax.cgi?” to the beginning of every link I add on my site, causing the script that runs the ecosystem to think it’s a link from an outside source.
Hey, that means I get a new inbound link every time I create a link in my blog. That’s perfect, for the direction I’m taking this blog in!
The second reason I suddenly have all these new links is very simple: The 301-redirect that’s in place at the old server (http://matt.vandusens.us/blog). That causes the Ecosystem script to automatically re-direct anything over here, and it’s seen as an inbound link.
Hey, that means I get a new inbound link every time I post in my blog, or whenever someone comments. That’s perfect, for the number of posts and comments I have!
Yeah, so that’s why I have such a great ranking within the ecosystem. I’m sure some would accuse me of cheating, but really, none of that was intentional. It’s just the way I have a couple of tools set up to create a more complete and seamless experience for my users. Can you really blame me too much for that?
Tonight I finish work at 10.
Supposed to leave at 9.
Come in at 1:30.
Roll ankle on loose softball.
Get bitched out by the boss.
Help customers.
Die on my feet.
Yeah so that’s about as much sense as I’m capable of making right now. Exciting.
Oh, and I’ve written some posts lately. I’ll type them up and add them to my blog tomorrow.
Which is when I’ll be semi-coherant.
Tonight, I worked a little over six hours. I was assigned to housewares and sporting goods - an area cut by domestics and seasonal. So I talked to the guy who had those tow zones and asked him if he’d be willing to switch with me: I would pick up seasonal while he took housewares. Fortunately, he agreed, giving me a lot less to do and allowing me to focus on getting a really good zone. I think I impressed the STL (Anne) tonight with my zone. That is definately a GOOD thing, since she, you know, kinda runs the place.
Only, I’m bothered by one thing now: I don’t know when I work tomorrow. I should look it up, but I’m too lazy to trudge down the stairs in the dead of night to look at the printout of my calendar on the fridge. So that just leaves getting out of my nice warm bed, sitting at the computer, waiting for it to start up, dialing up the internet (I hate dial-up, believe me!). However, it seems I have to know.
AN HOUR LATER…
Wow, I get sidetracked really easily… anyway, I have to be there at 1:30… and I have to close. ><
It’s something all bloggers have to deal with sooner or later: the poker ads, the sex links, all just to make a certain unethical site rank higher. Thanks to Google’s new way of dealing with sites that get a whole lotta links in a short amount of time (it’s patented!), we may find these sorts of spambots disappearing. However, there are a few things we as bloggers can do to help get rid of all spam permanently:
- Run Spam Karma 2 (only for WordPress)
- Use one of the inferior plugins for some of the other softwares
- Cry
Heh. That’s a short list. What, you thought I was going to have over 40 points every time? I do have a life, and parts of that life involve the need to sleep occasionally.
I have decided to add a new secion to my blog, entitled Bedside Thoughts. Appropriately enough, these will be written while I’m burning moonlight lying in bed and thinking. Hopefully, this will also serve to empty some of the clutter in my mind. Basically, these will just be link-whoring lists, as they will be unordered lists with links to examples I may find, on the entries it’s appropriate to do so on. Enjoy!
Anyway, this is the first entry. Oooh, ahhhhhh!
For my first night doing this, I have decided to make a list of how to make your blog popular, as that is everyone’s top concern. OK, maybe not all, but 95% probably want to see people actually reading their blogs. This list covers both search engines and actual readership, and anything that isn’t linked, either applies to my blog or I was just too lazy to find links for. Mostly the latter, as I’m going to come back and add more links later.
- Make lists of things
- Talk about David Letterman
- Talk about Jay Leno (The Anti-Letterman)
- Post pictures of your breasts (women only — please!)
- Post pictures of someone else’s breasts
- Post pictures of celebrities
- Post pictures of celebrities’ breasts
- Run a link-whoring porn blog
- Join the Alliance
- Write long, high-quality entries about cheese
- Write about your cats
- Write about your neighbors
- Get Slashdotted [ def ]
- Get Instapunted [ site ]
- Eat real, 100% American cheese
- Update your blog as much as possible. Every five minutes, if possible.
- Offer Podcasts.
- Create a fake staff - that actually all post on a regular basis.
- Offer unique insights on popular topics [ ref: get slashdotted, get instapunted ]
- Blog in the nude. While is unlikely to actually raise traffic, it will keep you cooler while blogging.
- Write for (known) publications (and plug your blog there)
- Use CafePress [ site ] to create shirts for your blog
- …and actually wear your shirts around town
- …and pay people to do the same
- Post about your favorite music
- Post about your favorite movies
- Post about your favorite TV shows
- Post about your favorite books
- Post about locations
- Spread filthy lies about another (preferably with more traffic than you) blogger (preferably Glenn Reynolds)
- Become a stats whore: Use at least 6 stats trackers / Apache log analizers.
- Get Farked [ site ]
- Blog about any of the following:
- The war in Iraq
- Teri Schivo
- George W
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Condolezza Rice
- Brittany Spears
- The University of Colorado
- Michael Jackson
- Ah-nold
- Instapundit
- Google
- us! [ The Random Ramblings of mattfast1 ]
Sorry, all you people who watch my external blog via my feed (). It seems the LiveJournal crawler application doesn’t understand the 301 redirect that I put in my other server. Therefore, my feed has been unwittingly offline for a while, and they just got it fixed yesterday, causing an flood of entries.
That shouldn’t happen again, as the LJ admins have fixed the URL manually in their feed database.